Stitches

No, not the knitting kind, or even Stitches East.

Today I had taken a day off because I had a doctor's appointment to have a birthmark removed from my face. It's a tiny one, on the left lower side of my chin, but the last time I went to the dermatologist, she was worried, because a whitish ring was forming around it. (Good thing she noticed, 'cause it looked the same to me!) Anyway, she wanted me to have it removed, because even though she didn't think it was anything too dangerous, she wanted to be safe rather than sorry, given my - as she put it - "colorful medical history."

So off I went to my doctor's new office location this morning, thinking it wouldn't be a big deal. And certainly in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't. As I was walking home, I thought to myself that maybe I should have gone to work after all. By the time I got home, I was extremely happy to be there! My jaw really hurt, I felt pretty out of it, and I had a headache.

Later in the afternoon, I thought I felt well enough to do some knitting. I figured it would be better to work on something simple, given that I was still kinda feeling out of it. So I picked up the sock I've been making, and gave it a try. I'm finishing the foot of the first sock, and it's just knitting, no pattern stitches or anything. Well, it took me over an hour to do three rounds, and then I realized I'd purled them all! So I tore out my three purled rows, and put the sock away ...

Which makes me wonder - how do people get so much knitting done when they are recuperating? Because usually by the time I've been with it enough to do any reasonable amount of knitting without really messing things up, it's been right when I was ready to return to work. But I know people who knit in their hospital beds, only hours after major surgery! I remember the first time I had to go to the hospital for surgery, I took my knitting project along with me, since I thought it would be a good way to kill time during the days and evenings I knew I would be there afterwards. And it would have been - if I'd had any clue about what was going on around me, or could even see straight!!

(Which is not to say I'm always right on top of things when I'm not in any kind of drug-induced state ...)